SAFEGUARDED - Reading Cemetery, which was built in the 19th Century

HERITAGE campaigners have notched up a victory that will ensure future generations

can still enjoy a slice of Reading's past.

Members of Reading Civic Society are celebrating the ‘listing' of Reading Cemetery as a grade two entry on the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historical Interest. The list is similar to the historic buildings list kept by English Heritage and means the Victorian cemetery cannot be turned over to developers or changed without the approval of the Garden History Society.

Ted Bell, Civic Society spokesman, said: "Over the years a number of developers have cast their eye over the cemetery which is a valuable piece of land.

"Now at least there is a procedure they would have to go through and I think it will be pretty safe for the future."

Jean Debney, of the Berkshire Family History Society, said: "I'm very pleased that it has been listed.

"It's very special to Reading with so many of the 19th Century residents buried there."

Reading Cemetery is known for its historic gatehouse at what is now called Cemetery Junction where King's Road meets Wokingham Road. It was set up by a private act of Parliament in 1842, establishing the Reading Cemetery Company. It was one of many cemeteries built by the Victorians in response to rapid population increase that meant church burial grounds, including St Mary's Butts, were overflowing.

Reading Cemetery was built on farm land outside the existing borough boundaries at a site called Hattons Platt which was owned by a Mr Cholmeley.

The first interment took place in 1843.

David Watkins, former treasurer of the Berkshire Family History Society, was delighted the cemetery had been given protection under the listing system.

Mr Watkins, of Fairwater Drive, Woodley, helped organise a team of volunteers who spent five years recording all the inscriptions on around 10,000 gravestones and monuments in the cemetery,

information that is now on, microfiche at the Berkshire Records Office.

He said: "It might seem an odd thing to say but the cemetery is a lovely place surrounded by bushes and trees and very peaceful.

"There's nobody very famous buried there but it does contain the graves of many Reading families and there is an interesting memorial from the First World War to people who died in Reading including Serbs and Canadians.

"They were injured in the fighting but had some chance of surviving and were brought to Royal Berkshire Hospital, where they died."

Mr Watkins said there was an interesting statue of an airman in uniform who fought in the war but crashed in the 1920s.

There is also the grave of Willie Woomera, a native Australian who died in Reading after being brought here in the 19th Century.

The cemetery originally included two chapels, one for Anglicans and one for so-called Dissenters who refused to support Anglican rites.

Burials were also divided between the Anglican consecrated ground and the Dissenters' non-consecrated ground and a small wall marked the boundary between the two.

The cemetery was extended at its far end in the early 20th Century and taken over by Reading Borough Council in 1959.

Occasional burials still take place there in plots purchased by families years ago.